Reporter's Instruction ManualObligationsTiming Indirect Reporting Signature Blocks and Free E-mail Accounts Style Reporting Owls Introduced Birds Obligations Participation is optional. Being a registered reporter for the NYCBR does not obligate you to do anything. You are not required to submit reports directly to the NYCBR system. You can avoid the burden of learning and following the NYCBR standard format for E-mail submissions by sending your sightings in any format to the appropriate NYCBR editor. The editor will reformat the text of your message and send it into the system in the standard format. That said, you are urged to learn and use the NYCBR standard format for submitting sightings for two reasons. (1) The burden that you avoid will be assumed by the editor who receives your unformatted submissions. (2) Your sightings will appear on the website within minutes instead of possibly hours or days. Timing The value of a report decreases with time. For example, if you observe a Kentucky Warbler, other birders are much more interested to know that you've done so within a few hours of your observation than they are a few days after your observation. So do submit your reports as soon as you can. In any event, reports must be submitted by the end of the day that follows the sighting. The NYCBR system will not accept a report after that. So, for example, if you observe a bird on Saturday, you have until the end of Sunday to report this observation. Only the submitter of a report may delete the report and only within 24 hours of the report being received. After that, the webmaster must do it. Indirect Reporting As a member reporter you can submit a regular report even if you are not an observer on the report. Or, looking at it another way, as a member reporter you can have another member reporter submit a report of your sightings. In that case, you alone will be listed as the observer. This allows registered reporters who do not have E-mail capability to report without having to go through the appropriate editor. Signature Blocks and Free E-mail Accounts If your E-mail software appends a signature block to the end of the E-mail messages you send, or if you will be submitting E-mail commands to the NYCBR from a free E-mail service, you may need to include a STOP marker at the end of each message you send. Signature blocks and the advertisements appended to messages by some E-mail services are not expected by the NYCBR system, causing the system to reject these messages. To get around this problem, place the word STOP on the last line of your message, and the system will ignore the line containing STOP and every line following it. Here is an example message body: site = Central Park date = 10/4/03 observers = George Washington northern cardinal song sparrow STOP IMPORTANT: The word STOP must be in all capitals and must be on its own line. Style The text of an E-mail command (subject and body) can be in upper or lower case, with the exception of site names and reporter names, which must be mixed case (Ex. Riverside Park). Reporting Owls To keep owls hidden from the general public, the NYC Bird Report limits the information that can be included with a reported owl sighting. The only information the NYCBR will accept with an owl sighting is a count. The following example shows how to report an owl species: long-eared owl (2.) This restriction does not apply to editors, so if you would like more information than just a count to accompany your owl sightings, send those sightings along with any information to the appropriate NYCBR editor. The editor will submit a report with your owl sighting and your information. If the information gives away the owl's position, the editor will not submit the information. Introduced Birds By policy, the NYC Bird Report excludes observations of recently introduced birds and their progeny. Therefore, please do not report observations of such birds unless you can convince the site editor that the particular birds observed were not recently introduced birds or their progeny. If not convinced, the editor will reject the sightings. The following birds are considered recently introduced: |